This document relates to memory systems that proactively refresh portions of a nonvolatile memory.
Various types of nonvolatile memory (NVM), such as flash memory (e.g., NAND flash memory and NOR flash memory), can be used for mass storage. For example, consumer electronics (e.g., portable media players) use flash memory to store data, including music, videos, images, and other media or types of information.
Portions of a nonvolatile memory can be refreshed periodically to prevent latency and data integrity issues. A portion is typically refreshed only after a host system encounters an error reading from or writing to the portion. When such an error is found, error correction algorithms must be applied to the portion before the read or write operation can be completed, which introduce additional latency into the system. What are needed are systems and methods for proactively refreshing nonvolatile memory.